Of all the most hackneyed criticisms of football writers, the worst is that the people who haven’t played the game aren’t entitled to their opinions.

It’s a theory generally put forward by the likes of José Mourinho, attempting to explain why every newspaper writer is wrong about him and, actually, United aren’t playing the worst football in a generation: they just haven’t played the game.

But the one time I wondered if it might have some value is in the reaction, by some members of the football press, to Wayne Rooney being given a one-off and unprecedented international testimonial game, against the United States at Wembley next Thursday.

Because it’s not their caps, is it? It isn’t their caps they once dreamed of in schoolboy football or that they keep safely behind glass no matter how many they get.

But for those who do live those lives, I can only imagine it must feel like an insult.

"I think there are better ways to do it," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "We could have a presentation on the pitch. I think if he was picked on merit, fair enough. But I don't think you can give caps out like gifts.”

For those to whom each cap matters, why should one cap, for one player, seemingly not matter at all? Where the thing they were always taught to do to make it as kids – to work hard, to keep working hard, that you’ll be picked if you’re good enough – now seemingly doesn’t apply?

Which brings is to the question of why Rooney is such a special case. Yes, yes, there’s the obvious headline reason: that he’s England’s record caps holder for an outfield player and their all-time highest goal scorer.

But frankly we all know what that speaks to: England's mediocrity.

Rooney would have received barely half of those caps if he’d been Spanish or French over the past ten years. If he’d been German or Argentinian, maybe fewer. It means there was no one else.

I won’t deny Rooney has been an excellent servant for England and I have been a happy England fan every time he’s pulled on the shirt.

But simply celebrating an inflated number during an extended period of abject English failure? Actually celebrating the fact we had no one else good? It’s probably apt that it’s against the USA, as we’ve become America lionising Cobi Jones (164 caps – that’s what matters, right?).

Look at the list of the players on 110 international caps or more. When it comes to forwards – who have shorter careers than goalkeepers and midfielders at the elite level – it’s not a pretty sight.

The list divides itself fairly equally between truly world-class, all-time greats (Cristiano Ronaldo on 154, Lionel Messi on 128, Thierry Henry on 123, Zlatan Ibrahimovic on 116) and good players racking up the caps with average countries (literally all the others). Guess which category England falls into?

And so if, instead, we were celebrating Rooney for winning a World Cup, say, or even leading a victorious England side at the Euros, then I’d be all for it. Paint my face and tattoo “Wazza” somewhere painful.

But as we were reminded again and again by commentators at the last World Cup, as Harry Kane became the only other England player since Gary Lineker to win the World Cup golden boot, over his entire England career Rooney managed a single, solitary World Cup goal. Everyone, quick, the bunting.

Beyond that, there’s the simple annoyance at the niggling feeling that part of this is just the stupidly dumb reason of getting Rooney to a nice round 120. The official England Twitter account, which tweeted an illustration of Rooney under the banner “120ONEY”, did not do a lot to dissuade me from this theory.

Still, if you want to argue the number matters a great deal, that winning 119 is a great sporting achievement on its own, no matter the side or era, then great, I'm with you. All the more reason, then, not to devalue them and give them out for free.

Because imagine, a decade or two from now, some future player, a legend in the making, hits 119. They, unlike Rooney, won’t get doled a free one like a fairground token. And so that player will be deprived the thing they strove so hard their whole life for.

Imagine this happening in any other field of achievement. Just imagine we just lopped a few milliseconds off Bolt’s 100m world record – because, you know, he deserves it – leaving the target that much harder for sprinters to come. Doesn’t seem fair, does it?

And if we’re not going to talk caps, let’s talk about goals. Rooney, even now, sent out to graze in his Washington, DC pasture, can probably hope to belly-bounce a couple past the United States, the international football equivalent of letting your doddery uncle bowl with the bumper rails up.

So how is that fair to Harry Kane, no doubt with Rooney’s record in his sights, who likely won’t be afforded similar spoon-feeding?

Finally, I know what you’re going to say: it’s for charity. How can you be against it? It’s for charity! Please, do spare me this FA fig leaf so small and implausible it’s practically a fig g-string.

Yes, you are correct in that it has been designated the “Wayne Rooney Foundation International”. Sounds good, doesn’t it? According to the Independent, the name was brainstormed “following months of talks between the FA and Rooney’s camp”. Months! Months!

What were they spending all that time doing? Painstakingly flip-flopping between “Wayne Rooney Foundation International”, “Wayne Rooney’s International Foundation” and “Wayne Rooney: International Man Of Mystery”?

Still, it feels hard to criticise, doesn’t? The charity, after all, helps children’s charities in the north of England.

As Shilton himself said: “It's great Wayne's foundation is going to get money from this game.”

But, the FA have said, money from the ticket sales will not go towards the foundation, as “The FA is a not-for-profit organisation, which invests millions of pounds back into the grassroots game on an annual basis.”

The only money that will go towards it? The money they collect on the night.

Oh, and to those who still argue: who cares, England friendlies don’t matter anyway? Let’s just say this is hardly going to help.